Reflecting on certain aspects of my upbringing has made me realize that I was sort of intended to turn out as a weakling. To begin with, the religious aspects were a direct influence, with the whole ideas of meekness and turning the other cheek. But it went beyond that. There was an extreme emphasis on manners and proper behavior that had real consequences. When I was signed up to play league sports in grade school (which I primarily hated), I was unreasonably timid. The best example of this being when in basketball, I was always apologizing if I touched another of the boys and saying excuse me, which when you think about it is an absolutely laughable scene for a contact sport where it's acceptable and necessary to be shoving past people and performing physical blocks.
The irony is that when I got a little older I started getting blamed by my parents for doing "girly" things. In one phase, there was a set of a few certain objects I always liked keeping with me (autism if it hasn't been apparent yet), but it was often hard to carry all of them in the car. They were all fairly small so I decided to staple together some fabric and decorate it with colored tape as a convenient container. Turned out this was essentially a purse, and they didn't like the idea of their son carrying that around. Likewise once into the teen years, and becoming more conscious about clothing, I sometimes coordinated colored wristbands with the color of a shirt. This also was frowned upon. I never got to have my own style or do anything original because it was "too girly" (which is untrue as it's extremely common as a teenager to wear wristbands, and many men in general also have satchels for convenience).
TL;DR — any natural male aggression I had was "cultured" out of me, but at the same time, my more docile behaviors were opposed on the grounds of being feminine. There was essentially no way to win.
The irony is that when I got a little older I started getting blamed by my parents for doing "girly" things. In one phase, there was a set of a few certain objects I always liked keeping with me (autism if it hasn't been apparent yet), but it was often hard to carry all of them in the car. They were all fairly small so I decided to staple together some fabric and decorate it with colored tape as a convenient container. Turned out this was essentially a purse, and they didn't like the idea of their son carrying that around. Likewise once into the teen years, and becoming more conscious about clothing, I sometimes coordinated colored wristbands with the color of a shirt. This also was frowned upon. I never got to have my own style or do anything original because it was "too girly" (which is untrue as it's extremely common as a teenager to wear wristbands, and many men in general also have satchels for convenience).
TL;DR — any natural male aggression I had was "cultured" out of me, but at the same time, my more docile behaviors were opposed on the grounds of being feminine. There was essentially no way to win.
